© ReutersShocking reveal ... lax law enforcement in countries such as Pakistan has resulted in a flourishing market for kidney trade.
SHANGHAI: The illegal trade in kidneys has risen to such a level that about 10,000 operations involving purchased human organs now take place annually, amounting to more than one an hour, World Health Organisation experts have revealed.
Evidence collected by a worldwide network of doctors shows that traffickers are defying laws intended to curtail their activities, and are cashing in on rising international demand for replacement kidneys driven by the increase in diabetes and other diseases.
Patients, many of whom will go to China, India or Pakistan for surgery, can pay up to $US200,000 for a kidney to gangs who harvest organs from vulnerable, desperate people, sometimes for as little as $US5000.
The vast sums to be made by both traffickers and surgeons have been underlined by the arrest by Israeli police last week of 10 people, including a doctor, suspected of belonging to an international organ trafficking ring and of committing extortion, tax fraud and grievous bodily harm. Other illicit organ trafficking rings have been uncovered in India and Pakistan.
One organ broker contacted in China advertises his services under the slogan, ''Donate a kidney, buy the new iPad!'' He offered $4000 for a kidney and said the operation could be performed within 10 days.
The resurgence of trafficking has prompted the WHO to suggest that humanity itself is being undermined by the vast profits involved and the division between poor people who undergo ''amputation'' for cash and the wealthy sick who sustain the body parts trade.
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